31 Days of spooky, day 6: A 'Rocky Horror Picture Show' spectacular

The one thing that I am most grateful for in life is that in all the vastness of human history, I happened to be born in a period of time in which the cult classic Rocky Horror Picture Show exists. I also lived during a time when VHS tapes existed, allowing me to watch the cult classic around once a week.

So it was inevitable that a song from RHPS would appear somewhere on our spooky October countdown.

If you've never seen the sci-fi horror musical comedy, it's about a gender-bending alien vampire, from a planet with a name that we're not allowed to say anymore, who clones himself a muscled-up beefcake, before seducing a young mid-western bible-belt couple, then getting felled in a mutiny by his creepy butler. As you can imagine, despite being a musical, RHPS gets a little convoluted, which is why I've gone with the opening number, "Science Fiction - Double Feature."

"Science Fiction - Double Feature" is more than an opening number, it's an opening statement, a love letter to the schlocky 50s sci-fi and horror films that were so ripe for parody as to inspire Rocky Horror.

"Science Fiction Double Feature" is The Rocky Horror Picture Show in a nutshell

It's an opening statement visually as well. As those disembodied ruby red lips singing in an unnerving androgynous falsetto fly towards the screen, we know to expect something that's like nothing we've seen before.

The way that nerdy film references are mixed in with unavoidably dirty innuendo remains subversively fun to this day. When the singer mentions getting "hot" while watching Day Of The Triffids, we know what's coming is going to be incredibly irreverent. Despite the classic film references, this ain't 'media analysis 101,' it's a dear Penthouse letter from someone who's probably been banned from the local shopping mall multiplex several times over.

"Science Fiction - Double Feature" is either a statement of intent or a trigger warning.

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